Hydraulic fracturing is a technique by which the production of natural resources, such as natural gas and petroleum, for example, can be stimulated or increased. The process of hydraulic fracturing includes inducing fractures in a rock layer using pressurized fluid. The process may also include the use of chemical additives mixed into the fluid. In addition to chemical additives, sand, which is typically stored in sand silos, may also be used as an additive in the process. Some additives may need to be continuously delivered during the production process, but the treatment may stop and start at undetermined intervals. As a result, the exact amount of additive needed may not be easily determined a priori.
FIG. 1 illustrates the current process for managing hydraulic fracturing chemical additive supply logistics on oil and gas well sites 1. The chemical additives are typically supplied from a manufacturer 2 packaged in drums or portable totes 3 to one or more intermediate warehousing or inventory storage facilities 4, which stores a thirty day inventory of each chemical additive for each well site. A typical truckload can transport 14 totes at a time. When a site 1 requires 32,000 gal of each of four liquid additive products, a delivery of 28 truckloads will be required to provide nearly 400 totes 3 at the site 1. When additional additives are required at a site 1, as determined via manual intervention in measuring and/or requesting additional additives, the drums or portable totes 3 containing the needed additional additives are then delivered from the district warehouse 4 to a site 1 and dropped off at the site 1. Each of the drum or totes 3 must be transferred and/or plumbed into the hydraulic fracturing fluid processing system using conveyances such as hoses. As can be appreciated, a typical job will result in a large number of totes 3 on sites 1 with packaging, handling, delivery, and facilities costs to absorb, as well as a large number of interconnections to manage and delivery logistics to arrange.